My personal definition of leadership is that someone, driven by a need to lead a group of followers, drives everyone to a common goal that they have helped establish, and that the leader will try to motivate the followers as best they can to accomplish this goal. My assumptions have changed recently through studying leadership, because leaders do not always have to be virtuous or ethical in their goals, or methods of leading. As a peer reminded me in a discussion board, a leader may be trying to lead in a way that is unethical. For example, in transformational leadership there is also pseudotransformational leadership and there are “toxic leaders” who “are characterized by destructive behaviors such as leaving their followers worse off than …show more content…
My personality and personal values have led to me being a very closed off person in my younger life, and keeping an extremely close knit circle, who are the only people privy to details of my life. I would do anything for my in-group, even at the expense of my own time, money or happiness. However, I am trying to open up more because I realize the flaws of leader-member exchange theory and being so closed off. I am trying to foster within my leadership being more of an authentic leader and so far, it has been an effective method in my current leadership methods. My definition of leadership has evolved from being focused on positive, ethical leaders because I realize that not all leaders are looking out for the good of their followers or of their community. So, I have adapted my personal definition of leadership to one that can encapsulate all types of leaders and scenarios. My personal definition is that someone, driven by a need to lead a group of followers, drives everyone to a common goal that they have helped establish, and that the leader will try to motivate the followers as best they can to accomplish this goal. Finally, as I look to the future, I want to go into business and hopefully in my personal life get married and have children. This type of future life will afford me different challenges as a leader and I anticipate using different leadership theories and concepts to address these. I intend to use gender and leadership, because I am a woman trying to go into a male dominated field. I know I will face challenges because of my gender and the existence of the glass ceiling but I intend to do my part to shatter workplace stereotypes and to help lead in the workplace. I want to help empower my female colleagues and make our workplace, and hopefully world, a more equitable place. Ethics will also be a big consideration